When in Rome...

Last year during Spring Break a colleague and I took 38 students to Italy. It was, needless to say, quite a challenge. I will be recapping the trip over the next few days.

OK first let me start off by saying that I had jet lag for about 3 days. I was tired and crabby and had to deal with 38 students aged 16-18. After the Rome experience (which you’ll read about) I was saying to myself that I would NEVER take another school trip again. By about Florence though, I changed my mind - call me crazy, more on that later!

Our first day in Rome was an exciting one – for many reasons. We got up bright and early to line up to enter the Vatican. We took a tour of the museum with a guide who gave us a lesson in art history of the differences between ancient Greek and ancient Roman art. Then we entered the Sistine Chapel. It is every thing you read about. At first I wasn’t really sure what the big deal was, but when I looked closely and saw the details that Michelangelo expressed in his work, I understood the importance. We also went into the dome of St. Peter’s Basilica, climbed all the way to the cupola and had a great view of Rome.

After a while we realized that we were missing two students. We had no idea where they were. Since the security at the Vatican is extremely tight, you can only go in one direction – no turning back. We had a feeling that they we upstairs in the dome, but security wouldn’t let us back up to see. For 4 hours my colleague and I tried to hold it together. We left a supervisor at St Peter’s square to continue to look for them, while the rest of us had to continue the tour to the Coliseum and the Forum.

I don’t remember much of those two places as my thoughts were elsewhere. For the first hour, I was angry, by the 3^rd I was worried and by the 4^th I was terrified. Finally on the way back to the hotel we got word that they had made it back to the hotel after being stuck up on the roof of the Basilica (where we thought they were) and unable to find the exit. Which admittedly is a little hard to find, but the other 36 students found it just fine.


I guess if we are going to lose someone in Italy, the best place for it would be the Vatican...